Mixing it Up

While at the Illustration Master Class I had numerous people stop by and comment on how cool my pallet was. A lot of the artists worked digitally so the mystique of paint appealed to them. I look at my pallet almost every day, so I never gave it much thought, but now I will.

Also while at IMC I got a great tip on two new colors from Donato Giancola: Davy’s Gray (Old Holland) and Mars Violet (Holbine). It’s important to get the right brand because each company makes their colors in a different way. In the past I’d tried an off-brand Davy’s Gray and I hated it. Yesterday I picked up Old Holland’s Davy’s Gray and loved it. Thanks Donato!

So what makes these colors neat? Let’s start with Davy’s Gray. Davy’s Gray is a greenish gray so it reacts strongly to blue and yellow. In the picture below I mixed in Yellow Ochre to shift the color to green, and Titanium white to lighten the color. I love the murky greenish blue grey that happens when you mix in the titanium white.

As for Mars Violet it is a lovely warm red that’s not too strong in chroma, but the really neat thing is that when you add Titanium White the color shift to a cool red gray! It’s almost like getting to colors for the price of one! Because of this if you mix warm colors with Mars Violet it stays warm, but when you add cool colors it shifts quickly to cool. Normally getting reds to shift to cool requires a lot of mixing. You can see below where I added Yellow Orche and Cerulean Blue.

The pallet above was used in my Freyr's Last Stand painting.

Stay Strange!

Sam Flegal

www.samflegal.com

Pallet Set Up

When learning to paint in a traditional medium, it becomes quickly apparent that process is everything. For me, my painting process starts even as I lay out my paints on my pallet. I use the same wooden pallet every time I paint. Over years of painting, the paint left over has built up into little piles of hardened color.

If you look at the image above, you can see which colors I use and what order I place them in. I’ve tried to set up my pallet from warm to cool and light to dark. However, as I add colors, I try to find space close to where they need to go, and because they joined the pallet late in the game, they don’t always get to go exactly where they should. The main advantage of having your colors in the same place is that, as you paint more, you get used to knowing exactly where the color you need is located. In time this knowledge and ease of color picking will speed up your paint mixing and the overall time it takes you to finish a painting.

In a future post I’ll examine why I use each of the colors on my pallet. For now here is a list:

Titanium White

Naples Yellow

Cadmium Yellow Light

Yellow Orche

Cadmium Red Light

Alizarin Crimson

Burnt Sienna

Mars Violet (Holbine)

Magenta

Dioxazine Purple

Greenish Umber (Rembrandt)

Sap Green

Davy’s Gray (Old Holland)

Cerulean Blue

Cyan

Ultramarine Blue

Payne’s Gray

Ivory Black

Burnt Umber

Sepia

For the most part, the brand of paint doesn’t matter, especially when you’re first getting started, but where it does matter, I’ve listed the brand in parentheses.

In order to mix my paint I clip a white wax paper pallet to the middle of my pallet. This way I can grab the colors I need and mix the paint. Then at the end of the day, I can scrape the colors that are still good into an air tight pallet, rip of the wax paper sheet, and start with a fresh clean pallet the next time I paint. Sometimes I even use two different wax paper pallets so I can shift back and forth between them, just clipping the one I need to my wooden pallet and setting the other one to the side until I need it again. One of the nice things about working in oil paint is that your colors don’t dry out very quickly so you can use them again and again.

Stay Strange!

Sam Flegal

www.samflegal.com

How I Photograph my Oil Paintings

A few years back, I did a post on Photographing Artwork that covers the basics of what I learned at the Illustration Master Class about photographing paintings (make sure to read the comment by Blue Jai—he gives some great advice!). Additionally, Dan Dos Santos did a great post on this topic over on the Muddy Colors blog called How to Photograph Your Paintings.

Still, one of the number one questions I get from other artists is, “How do you photograph your paintings?” It seems like a big mystery, but it’s really not. Like anything, the unfamiliar seems a little scary sometimes. My first piece of advice is try it on your own. The best way to learn how to do something is to do it. So get in there Champ!

Alright pep talk aside, I do not have the fancy set up and equipment that Dos Santos has. One day I plan to get those things because they make it nicer, but in the mean-time I’ve got work to do. So my first piece of advice is don’t get too caught up in expensive tech gear. Use the camera you have and the other tools available to you. As you continue to work you can add other things and make the process easier and better (and when you do get that stuff you’ll really appreciate why it’s so much better!).

MY ELABORATE PHOTO SET-UP

There are, however, a few MUST HAVE items:

1. A Camera, preferably one with a timer so you don’t touch the camera when photographing and one that can be set to tungsten light.

2. 500 Watt ECT Bulb – Tungsten Light. You’ll need 2 of these. (LINK to where I bought mine)

3. Two Clamp Lights (LINK to Home Depot)

Assuming you already have a Camera you can get the lights and the clamps for about $40 total. If you don’t have a decent Camera you’ll need to invest in one. You need it for shooting good reference as well as photographing your paintings.

FANCY CHAIR LIGHT STAND!

Alright onto my fancy setup:

I place my painting on an easel on top of a little table. I make sure the painting is a straight up-and-down as possible. I place my camera stand in front of the panting and make sure the camera is parallel to the painting. I set up 2 chairs and clamp my lights to the backs of the chairs. I stand behind my painting to make sure the lights are an equal distance away from the painting and then use a protractor to make sure the lights are hitting the painting at about a 30 degree angle.

I then turn on the lights. LOOK AWAY—these bad boys are super bright. I then photograph the painting. I set the ISO to 100 (this makes the painting less grainy in the shadows). I set the white balance to tungsten. I set the file type to Camera RAW (this makes it MUCH easier to adjust in Photoshop). I set the aperture to F14.

BRIGHT LIGHTS!

I then look through the lens, focus on the most important part of the painting, and adjust the shutter speed to about -1. I like to shoot the painting underexposed, then optimum exposed, and then over exposed. I figure you’ve already set this whole thing up—might as well shoot at the different settings because you don’t know which one will look the best. I often find that under exposed paintings match the color more closely in Photoshop with minimal digital adjustment.

Then you photograph the painting in pieces and combine in photoshop. Dan has already provided great advice in his post so read all about it on Muddy Colors.

And that’s about it. I hope this helps de-mistify the process I use for those curious folks out in the mega verse.

Stay Strange!

Sam Flegal

www.samflegal.com

Painting Tip – Wash Your Brushes

Quick painting tip today. WASH YOUR BRUSHES!!! That’s right—regardless of medium, you can dramatically increase the life of your brushes by washing them after a day of painting. I keep a tupperware with a bar of Ivory soap for just such an occasion. It’s important to use cheap soap: you don’t want any moisturizing weird girly soap because that will mess up your brushes.

Here’s how it works:

After cleaning brushes in the normal way for your medium (water, turpentine, odorless mineral spirits, etc…) use warm water to rinse your brush. Run the bristles of the brush back and forth across the bar of soap. Rinse the brush in water and repeat! I usually do this a couple times. Then place your brushes in a cup, bristles up, so they can dry.

Stay Strange!

Sam Flegal

www.samflegal.com

Convention Tip – DON’T Share a Booth

I do a lot of conventions, about 20 to 24 per year. I set up my booth, display my art, and sell to fans. For most illustrators in the field of Sci-fi and Fantasy art, conventions are a part of their yearly routine and income. It’s well known at this point that conventions are a great way to get your name out there, sell art, meet art directors, and other artists in the field. In my opinion doing conventions is key to developing yourself as an artist, with the added benefit of getting to participate in the greater community of fantastic art.

That said, most artists do about 5 conventions a year or less. They do the big shows, and maybe a couple of events where they are asked as guests. It’s a rare few of us that do more than 20 shows a year, which is fine. Not every artist is as extroverted and interested in salesmanship as I am. As an offshoot of the number of conventions I do, I often get asked a lot about the ins and outs of the con circuit. Every artist needs to do at least a couple of shows every year, so naturally they’re curious. To help answer that curiosity, I’ve decided to start posting some convention tips here on my blog.

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Without further ado… Convention Tip – DON’T Share a Booth!

When I first got started in conventions I was scared (just like most folks). So I took several friends who worked in conventions out to dinner to pick their brains about the business. Information defeats fear! (Extra Tip – When you want to know more, take someone who does know more out to dinner.)

After one such dinner with my friend Sarah Frary, I asked her if we could share booths at some point in the future. [Now this is a natural thing to do, but understand why. You are afraid; if you have a buddy you will be less afraid. If your buddy has already done a few shows, you're thinking you can rely on their experience.] Sarah said, “No.” She then explained that first off, our art looks nothing alike and does not complement each other. (Take a second to check out her site HERE. She’s badass but imagine the two of us right next to each other. People would be, like, what does that have to do with that?) Secondly, she said, that sharing a booth rarely works out well, even if their styles mesh. Both artists are crammed into a 6ft or 8ft space, one person might get more attention than the other, and you might interrupt the flow of each other’s sales. All in all it’s a bad scene.

[As an aside I had also done something a little rude here without realizing it at the time. Essentially I was asking Sarah to teach me the business at the sacrifice of her own sales, space, and art. I was of course clueless to this, but as older-and-wiser me looks back, I'm a little embarrassed. The MUCH better way to handle this is to offer to be an assistant to an artist you admire at the convention. Pay your own way. They MIGHT be able to get a you a free badge, but don't expect that. Then do what they ask, watch, listen, and learn. Extra Tip - If you want to learn about cons, think old school and do a convention as an apprentice.]

I of course nodded, thanked Sarah for her advice, and told her I understood. On some level I was a little hurt, but as the years have gone by (I’ve been doing shows since 2009) I’ve come to realize what AMAZING advice Sarah had given me. I’ve seen a lot of artists share booths and I’ve NEVER seen it work out all that well (unless the artists involved were already famous and/or successful).

DON’T BE A FROWNY FACE!

I have, however, seen a lot of negative situations that relate to sharing a booth:

1. One artist outshines the other — better artist, better salesman, better display.

2. People typically make one purchase at a booth. It’s RARE a fan will buy from both artists. If you are sharing space, you are also likely sharing profit, too.

3. One artist has a bad time, looks moody, and drives people from the booth. Nobody wants to approach a frowny face!

4. One artist is very aggressive at sales and unintentionally steals a sale from their booth mate. “Oh you like unicorns, my friend here only has one unicorn painting, but I have five, check them out!” He’s having a good show and is excited, he didn’t mean to, but he just broke the vendor code (more on this in a future post) by pulling a customer away from his booth-mate.

5. One artist will not stay at the booth. They’re distracted by all the cool convention stuff or too nervous to sit still. To make matters worse, everyone likes his art more, so people keep complimenting the second artist on the absent artist’s work. Talk about resentment!

6. Art directors keep stopping by, but are only interested in one of the artists.

7. People get confused about who is who and at future events mix the two artists up. “Wait which one of you is the unicorn guy?”

UNICORN GUY?

I think that about covers it. In conclusion I’ll offer this final piece of advice: Take the pride in yourself and make the investment in your future. You owe it to yourself to get the credit you deserve. Even if you bomb your first few shows, it is better to fail spectacularly on your own, and learn from the experience!

DO NOT SHARE YOUR BOOTH AT CONVENTIONS!!!

Stay Strange!

Sam Flegal

www.samflegal.com

Guilt Free - Quality Art

As a working artist, it is very easy to constantly jump from project to project cranking out art. That’s how you get paid after all, and most people I know like to get paid. Especially starting out and working for lower-paying clients, it’s not uncommon for artists to take on lots of low-paying jobs, using the quantity to make up for the quality of pay.

I tried that for a while myself, and it didn’t work out so well. You either sacrifice the quality of the work (which means it won’t be good enough for your portfolio and won’t get you better jobs) or you sacrifice sleep (a little sleep deprivation here and there is fine, but do it too often and you’ll end up passing out in your bathroom floor waking up to your wife hovering over you in a panic!). I chose to sacrifice sleep and did, in fact, end up on said floor.

Once I realized that what I really needed to focus on was upping the quality of my work, I slowed my work schedule just enough so that every piece can be better than the last and I can still sleep. As a result I do have to say, “No” occasionally when a job comes my way that’s a bad fit or a bad deadline, but in the end, I think the steady increase in the quality of my work speaks for itself.

One concern many might have is that if you’re working less, you’re getting paid less. In my experience, the higher quality of the work means selling more prints, originals, and other items, as well as getting higher paying gigs. All of which more than makes up for the initial loss in pay.

If your goal is to improve each and every painting, then figure out the work load you can handle to make sure you’re producing quality work and tending to your health. In the long run, both your career and body will thank you.

Stay Strange!

Sam Flegal

www.samflegal.com

Reference – Use Good Costumes

For my High Elves – Elf Gate painting that will appear in the new Elves of Uteria Source Book, I knew I had a big advantage when it came to gathering reference. Uteria was created by Michael Bielaczyc who also co-owns Aradani Studios, a costume company that specializes in elf-ears! As soon as Michael commissioned me for the project I immediately worked it out with him to do a photo shoot with him and his wife Laura, who is also a great seamstress and member of the Aradani team.

Getting to do a photo shoot over at Aradani was great! They had tons of costuming stuff and I got to pick and choose, mixing one thing from one costume, and adding a prop from another, etc… Then I set up my lighting and got to shootin’.

MICHAEL BIELACZYC

LAURA JONES

As you can see from the photos having good costuming makes doing an illustration a lot easier. So as an illustrator it’s a good idea to gather both cool costumes and think of creative ways to use your friends and their costumes in your work. Just remember… It Takes a Village to Make a Painting!

Thanks Mike and Laura!

Stay Strange!

Sam Flegal

www.samflegal.com

ELF GATE BY SAM FLEGAL